Tucker Max has had so many “that one night” stories in his short life. So many that at age 23, his friends told him he should tell the world his drunken stories through a blog, and so he began TuckerMax.com.
Upon opening the website guests are greeted with no false pretences: “I’m Tucker Max, and I am an asshole.” The site of clever and wickedly funny stories garnered enough attention to land Max a book deal. His short stories became a memoir titled I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. Upon its release in 2006, it spent time on the New York Times Bestseller list.
Max is best known for his belligerent drinking and wild nights spent bar hopping and picking up random girls, but Max was not a typical community college kid drinking and partying every night, drinking themselves into the fast lane and out of school. No, Max was, and is, a smart fellow who attended the University of Chicago and later Duke Law School where he graduated with a law degree. He interned at Fenwick & West where he quickly realized he hated corporate law, calling himself a paper custodian.
Even before his blog and his books, Tucker Max was considered a legend among college kids (mainly males) all over the country. Throughout his stories Tucker Max says and does things that would surely land anyone a beating or in jail (and gets away with it). Tucker Max is rude and disrespectful. He is boastful and arrogant. Still he is clever, funny, and oddly charming. Most of us regret conversations where we’ve held our tongues or look back on times where we wished we would have danced on the table. Tucker Max does not. He says what crosses his mind as it crosses his mind and dances wherever, whenever. Rudeness and arrogant comments aside, his blunt honesty is captivating.
Stories like “The Famous Sushi Pants,” in which Max tries to get drunker than anyone in the bar and has a breathalyzer to help declare the winner, and “The Night We Almost Died,” about the time he and his friends got kicked out of a bar and got into a fight with a large group of armed drunks, deal with drunken dangerous situations. However, “The Austin Road Trip,” and “Tucker Goes to Vegas,” retells happy drunken adventures with his drunk friends. Its not all fun and games though. A few stories make the reader consider Max’s sanity and wonder where his need for constant attention roots from. “The Absinthe Doughnuts Story,” and “Tucker Goes To A Hockey Game,” makes the reader, after laughing, want to tell Max where the nearest AA is located.
One would think there aren’t any lessons to be learned from a twenty-something-year-old's drunk voyages through college, but here is where Tucker Max surprises us once again. “The Worst Tucker Story Ever” tells of Tucker’s subconscious getting the better of him when he finds out a friend is pregnant with his child and has ovarian cancer. “The Most Disturbing Conversation Ever,” and “This‘ll Hurt a Little” serve as good enough warning against promiscuous sex (and taking advantage of a woman‘s insecurity). Although rude, crude and immature, Tucker Max mixes the "fun" tales with the sad ones, editing nothing out.
Over all, Tucker Max has published 2 other books, titled Belligerence and Debauchery: The Tucker Max Stories (2003), and The Definitive Book of Pick-Up Lines (2001).
Tucker Max has also turned I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell into a screenplay. The film, starring Matt Czushry and Jesse Bradford, was released earlier this year. Tucker Max still blogs.
